Modern electronics typically include a variety of elements, such as circuits, blocks, subsystems, and the like in a system or apparatus. The various elements typically communicate with one another to exchange data, status signals, control signals, and the like. To facilitate such communication, a variety of communication techniques have been developed. The techniques often use standard or standardized communication protocols to accommodate a relatively wide variety of system elements. Examples include System Management Bus (SMB or SMBus), Inter-Integrated Circuit (I2C), Serial Peripheral Interface (SPI), and the like.
The description in this section and any corresponding figure(s) are included as background information materials. The materials in this section should not be considered as an admission that such materials constitute prior art to the present patent application.